HD28 .M414 no- Ji&o WORKING PAPER ALFRED SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT P. Youth and Scientific Innovation: The Role of Young Scientists in the Development of a New Field Michael A. Rappa Koenraad Debackere Massachusetts Institute of Ri/ksuniversiteit Gent Technology August 1992 WP Revised September 1992 Sloan # 3480-92 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 50 MEMORIAL DRIVE CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139 Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology Youth and Scientific Innovation: The role of Young Scientists in the Development of a New field Michael A. Rappa Koenraacl Debackere Massachusetts Institute of Rijksuniversiteit Gent Technology August 1992 WP Revised September 1992 Sloan # 3480-92 © 1992 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Forthcoming in Minerva, Vol. 31, No. 1, Spring 1993. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology 50 Memorial Drive, E52-538 MA Cambridge, 02139-4307 M.I T. LIBRARIES MOV 2 1992 REcevto i Youth and Scientific Innovation: The Role of Young Scientists in the New Development of a Field MICHAEL RAPPA and KOENRAAD DEBACKERE When the octogenarian Johnny Kelley running in his sixty-first Boston Marathon crossed the finish line, those who witnessed the feat looked on with a mixture of astonishment and admiration. There is a general belief that, within the population —as a whole, athletic ability deteriorates with age. Few would consider Kelley not to mention the other contestants in the — masters' division as evidence to the contrary, even though most people less than half his age could not run even the first leg ofthe twenty-six mile race. The remarkable Kelley notwithstanding, that athletic contests favour youth is a widely held assumption that is hardly, ifever, seriously questioned. A far more disputable matter is the relationship between age and ability in science. Physical and mental ability are normally viewed as two very dif- ferent human attributes, and the connection of the latter with age is not as readily apparent from everyday experience. Yet there is a commonly held belief that as we get older, we may become more set in our way ofthinking and less receptive to new ideas. Auguste Comte observed there is a "...perpetual conflict which goes on between the conservative instinct that belongs to age and the innovating instinct which distinguishes youth...."1 Apparently, the scientific mind is not immune to the effect of aging. "Almost always," Thomas Kuhn claims, "the men who achieve [the] funda- mental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they changed." So much so, he goes on to say, "this generalization about the role ofyouth in fundamental scientific re- search is so common as to be a cliche."2 Indeed, it has become a cliche. "The old commonly resist the young, and it is no different in science," is a familiar statement that implies scien- tists would be arrogant to think otherwise.^ For some persons, the assertion that age itself has a bearing on scientific work is amazingly naive.^ If any- 'Comte, Auguste, The Positive Philosophy, translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau. Reprint ofthe 1855 translation of Coursde Philosophic Positive published by C. Blanchard, New York, with a new introduction byAbraham S. Blumberg (New York: AMS Press, 1974).p. 518. "Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure ofScientific Revolutions, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 90. 'Broad, William and Wade, Nicholas, Betrayers ofthe Truth: FraudandDeceitin Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 135. ''See Hull, David L, Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and ConceptualDevelopmentofScience(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), pp. 379-383; & 2 Michael Rappa KoenraadDebackere thing, it is not a scientist's age that is relevant, but a number offactors that are correlated with age, such as substantive and methodological preconcep- tions, professional standing, specialised interests, and affiliation with certain schools of thought.s In his account ofrevolutions in science, Professor I. B. Cohen states "the desire to be an active part ofa revolutionary movement is often in conflict with the natural reluctance of any scientist to jettison the set ofaccepted ideas on which he has made his way in the profession. New and revolutionary systems of science tend to be resisted rather than wel- comed with open arms, because every successful scientist has a vested intel- lectual, social, and even financial interest in maintaining the status quo...."" Nonetheless, there may also be a cognitive aspect to the difficulty aging scientist's have in accepting new ideas. In The Origins ofModern Science, Professor Herbert Butterfield argued "...the most difficult mental act ofall is to rearrange a familiar bundle of data, to look at it differently and escape from prevailing doctrine."7 Throughout the course oftheir careers, scientists develop experimental skills, accumulate data and formulate theories that enable them to perform their work, but paradoxically, may constrain their ability to innovate. According to Professor Kuhn, there is nothing whatso- ever unusual about the inability of scientists to reorient themselves to an emerging paradigm. "Lifelong resistance," Kuhn states, "particularly from those whose productive careers have committed them to an older tradition of normal science, is not a violation ofscientific standards but an index to the nature ofscientific research itself."8 The importance of understanding the relationship between age and scientific innovation can be seen in the recent work of Drs. Paula Stephan and Sharon Levin, who explore the implications ofdemographic changes for the scientific community. If science does indeed favour youth, then they posit that a "graying" scientific community can dampen the rate ofscientific discovery.5 Be that as it may, it is the continuous struggle between emerging theories and established scientific views that permits science to make progress. Whether or not this struggle has a generational dimension to it is an enduring question pondered by scientists and those who study science, alike. It is an admittedly disquieting question that, in the absence ofreliable Zuckerman, Harriet, Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the UnitedState; (New York: Free Press, I9"7,7), pp. 164-169. 'See Barber, Bernard, "Resistance by scientists to scientific discovery", Science, CXXXTV (1961), pp. 596-602. "Cohen, I. Bernard, Revolution in Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 35. 'Quoted in Bevendge, W.I.B., The Art ofScientific Investigation, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1957), p. 106. Professor Butterfield has said "ofall forms of mental activity, the most difficult to induceeven in the minds ofthe young, who may be presumed not to have lost their flexibility, is the art ofhandling the same bundle ofdata as before, but placing them in a system oi relations with one another bygiving chem a different framework...." See Butterfield, Herbert, The OriginsofModern Science, Revised Edition (New York: Free Press, 1957), p. 13. Kuhn, Thomas S., TheStructureofScientific Revolutions, op. at., p. 151. Stephan, Paula and Levin, Sharon, Strikingthe Mother Lode in Science: TheImportance ofAge. Place, and Time(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 75-89.
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